


Doors Unlocked and Opening

by angledust



Category: The Bone Key - Sarah Monette
Genre: First Kiss, Ghosts, Haunted Hotel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sharing a Bed, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angledust/pseuds/angledust
Summary: One truth Booth learned early in life is that the spread of paranormal occurrences is neither fair nor equal. Instead, these forces tend to cluster, resolutely drawn to certain people or places. There are very few people, or places, that draw Booth in in the same way.OrHow Booth and Ratcliffe ended up investigating a room with only one bed.
Relationships: Kyle Murchison Booth/John Pelham Ratcliffe
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Doors Unlocked and Opening

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ceci_n_est_pas_un_corbeau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceci_n_est_pas_un_corbeau/gifts).



Their letters had grown steadily more frequent over the last months, becoming a bi-weekly occurrence. Close enough to discuss the minutiae of their lives. More so Ratcliffe’s than Booth’s, Ratcliffe was always travelling somewhere interesting, and even when writing of minor everyday things, he had a knack for the kind of description that made such details entertaining. Booth did not try to recreate this in his letters to Ratcliffe, but despite this Ratcliffe always made an effort to ask about some aspect Booth had mentioned of his far less exciting life, necessitating a quick reply.

So, when Booth received a letter from Ratcliffe mentioning his plan to travel to a city between them for an archaeological conference, Booth was unfortunately quick to reply. While Ratcliffe had never travelled to this city he had, years ago. The urge to offer Ratcliffe something, something practical, something useful to make this correspondence worth his while, flared hot.

Unfortunately, his trip had not been particularly inspiring. Booth had travelled there as an attendant for several of the museum’s books considered too valuable to be shipped alone, but not valuable enough to travel with an actual courier. This was some years ago, and Dr Evans, the Parrington’s director at the time, had apparently considered the trip a favour to Booth. “Get out there, Booth, have a night on the town, see something of this country.” Booth had not. He couldn’t recommend any restaurants or nightspots, not having ventured out to see them. But he could recommend the guesthouse he had stayed at.

In fact, staying at the guesthouse had been a singularly enjoyable experience. For once he had felt no guilt over his decision to not venture out beyond into the city, and simply enjoyed every moment he spent in the house’s pleasing ambience. Perhaps if he had been less eager to write back, to reach Ratcliffe with the recommendation before his departure early the next week, he would have thought twice, and wondered why he had found staying in his room so pleasant.

He mentioned the guesthouse to a colleague the next Monday. This wasn’t out of any suspicion. While rare for him to volunteer any personal information in casual conversation with colleagues, he had found himself several times recently bringing up details from Ratcliffe’s letters, as though the words wanted to get out despite him. Mr. Dumont’s, who was usually happy to talk without reply, reaction to the name of the guesthouse wasn’t the mild interest or brush off he expected.

“Oh, that place.” Dumont paused in his typing.

“That place?“ Booth had not expected Dumont to know anything about the guesthouse. It just seemed like the kind of place people stumbled across, rather than knew, that was how he found it, after all. But of course, that another person might know of it wasn’t so unusual. It was the significant way Dumont looked at him as he said the words that was strange. “You’ve stayed there?” Booth tried again.

“No. You couldn’t pay me to stay there. You mean you really haven’t heard?” Dumont took a deep breath, gearing up. “William Lane, the hat salesman from Chicago?” The way he had said hat salesman made it clear Mr. Lane was not one, though what hat salesman was a cover for Booth had no idea. “That’s where he slipped and fell. In the bath, with a knife in his back.”

Booth hadn’t, but it did seem like a nasty accident. The conversation was enough to make him look through another city’s newspapers later that morning and find out that this was not the only recent incident in the guesthouse. In the last three months there had been a fall down the stairs resulting in a death, and an apparent case of choking while eating alone. He caught himself thinking how it seemed impossible anyone could die in such a nice place. And that’s when he became really worried. He was younger during his first stay, more naïve, and less experienced with the occult. Now, he has no such excuse. The supernatural is manipulative, some deep mostly forgotten part of him told himself, even when it seems pleasant, even when you want it more than you could have imagined, it’s dangerous. And this was where he had sent Ratcliffe.

He picked up the phone immediately, but hung up after several rings. Ratcliffe would be travelling most of the day and must have left already. He had a vision of himself going through call after call, a net of numbers and people, to finally reach Ratcliffe at some station and tell him, what? You’re going to a guesthouse, where, wait for it, people have died. After all, any house will have people die in it, it’s no shock that a place where many reside might experience more. Three deaths in as many months is high, but not necessarily suspiciously so. And the guesthouse was certainly due some deaths, because before three months ago he couldn’t find evidence of anyone dying there, ever. He stood up from his desk, and left work early, and his feet led him to the train station, and now here he is.

The guesthouse doesn’t have a particularly eerie look. It barely has a look at all, fitting in well with the other plain brick houses on the street. There’s little decoration, no hanging planters to add colour. The only difference is that maybe the lights in the downstairs windows shine a little brighter. It’s obviously popular though. Just in the minute he’s been standing outside the door has opened twice to allow out departing groups.

So, the deaths haven’t put people off staying here. Or maybe they aren’t aware. Dumont had expressed a belief that Lane’s death, or as he considered, murder, had been hushed up, and certainly none of the unfortunate deaths at the guesthouse seemed to have benefited from a particularly thorough investigation, and had only been reported briefly. It’s something Ratcliffe should know, anyway, especially since it was Booth who brought him here.

Booth wavers. Despite eight hours on a train rehearsing, he still has no idea what to say to Ratcliffe, only that it’s absolutely essential he says something. So, he steels himself, and walks inside before he loses his nerve.

Ratcliffe is standing right there in the firelit foyer, of course he is. Booth feels a sense of inevitably clutch him tight as a rush of warmth washes over him. It’s a lot to take in, and he freezes there just through the door, as its bell rings above him. Ratcliffe turns to face him, away from the front desk and the signing in book, and smiles. Booth knows he wasn’t wrong, there’s something wrong here, except it doesn’t feel wrong. Light from the roaring fire and dim electric lamps glances off wood panelled walls and ends in thick crimson carpets. The foyer is perfectly cluttered, comfortable leather padded armchairs, shelves of books, drinks and hard candy set out, a place not just to walk through to your room, but to linger in. It smells nice. The atmosphere is like a hug, designed to pull in the unsuspecting, the weary, the lost.

“Booth, what a surprise!” Ratcliffe is still wearing his coat, cheeks red from the cold. He takes a step towards Booth.

Booth steps forward too, just enough to close the door behind him. Even with the ominous dread he’s reminding himself he should be feeling, his lips start to twitch up in a smile. It is good to see Ratcliffe again, certainly better than letting him stay here unknowing, though how to tell him...

Ratcliffe waits, and though his smile doesn’t disappear Booth sees he’s waiting for an explanation Booth doesn’t have.

A small, elderly woman stands up from behind the front desk, out of an armchair twice her size which must have camouflaged or absorbed her till now. “Will you want a room together?” she asks hopefully, “We do have one room left.”

They both look at each other. “Do we?” Ratcliffe asks.

Booth opens his mouth, “Uh…”

“It’s a small room, but perfectly comfortable.” The woman walks around the counter, spry for her age “If you don’t want it it’s sure to be snapped up tonight.” Her encouragement makes Booth look at her twice.

“Well, we’re both here, and at this time of night we need a room, so of course. If that’s alright with you, Booth?” Ratcliffe asks. He’s eyeing Booth as if he’s very interested in what he has to say, why he’s even here probably.

Booth is glad explaining that doesn’t seem to be required of him at this exact moment. He nods.

The landlady pulls the signing in book along the desk, sending it towards Booth. He steps forward to scan the current page of the thick book, picking up the attached pen. He only recognises one name. The landlady, moving about behind the desk, drops a key down next to him as he signs. Unconvinced of his ability to explain to Ratcliffe his worries about this place, he supposes he’s staying the night.

He takes the key and turns it over in his hand. It’s long, suspiciously ornate. “This way.” Booth picks up his briefcase and Ratcliffe his much larger travelling bag, and they follow the landlady into the hall.

The corridor is more brightly lit than the foyer, but no less pleasant, an airy feel that hums with potential, like they could step into anywhere. The landlady pauses by a coatrack at the intersection between rooms. “Feel free to hang your coats here,” she says, and waits like there’s no chance of them not doing that. They do. If this is standard for guests, then despite the hotel’s busyness there’s only one set of outerwear on the coatrack, a thick brown coat with black boots peeking out from underneath, and a matching hat and scarf. “Do you have many guests at the moment?” Booth asks.

“We do. There are our regulars, and even this time of the year we always have a few travellers passing few.” She looks at him sharply. “May I have that key you pocketed, Mr. Booth?”

He hands it to her. “I thought it was the room key,” he says, too surprised to feel guilty.

She smiles and uses the key to open a door on the other side of the hallway. “As I said, your room is the smallest. We don’t always rent it out.” She says it like they’re getting a rare treat. “So, it doesn’t have a key, and it doesn’t have a connection to the electricity. I’ll give you a lamp to take with you.” She slips inside the room for barely three seconds and comes back with a lamp, which she lights for them. She hands the lamp to Ratcliffe, and the key to Booth. “You’re welcome to use this room to store your bags, although they’ll be perfectly safe in your own room. But some people worry about these things. Keep the key until you leave, there won’t be anyone else wanting it.”

Ratcliffe shoots Booth an unknowable look. “So, are most of your customers regulars?” he asks the landlady, and Booth wonders if he noticed the same thing as him.

“This way.” They pick up their bags. “Many people choose to stay longer than they-” As they start to walk, her words are cut off by the bell at the front door ringing. She steps back and peeks around the corner. “Oh, what a shame.” She looks genuinely sorrowful.

“I’m sure we can hunt down the room,” Ratcliffe says. “Just point us in the right direction.”

“Up the stairs, door directly in front of you at the end of the corridor.” She excuses herself with a smile. They throw thanks at her, and head upstairs.

Ratcliffe glances behind him at Booth on the stairs. “Well…” he says with a smile.

The door to their room is unremarkable, unmissable at the end of the corridor, and unlocked when Ratcliffe pushes it open.

Booth sees the room past Ratcliffe, who steps inside. He sees the whole room, because there’s not much to see. The walls, and floors, are wood panelled, the carpet ends in the hall. There are no windows, just the one door. Inside, Ratcliffe shines the lamp around the pale brown box. It’s clean, very little dust floating in the lamplight, and the sheets and comforters on the room’s sole piece of furniture, the bed, look fresh and new. It’s a very nice bed, pressed against the wall left of the door, large enough to take up most of the room. It’s still only one bed.

“Our landlady didn’t exaggerate about the size.” Ratcliffe takes a walk around the room, examining what’s inside. It’s over quickly, and Ratcliffe puts his bag and the lamp down on the floor, since there’s no table or anywhere else to put either. “Still, she must have decided we’re intimate enough friends to want the room anyway.”

Booth knows Ratcliffe means the words innocently, but still blushes, standing frozen in the doorway.

Ratcliffe looks at him searchingly. “It is alright, though.” He waits. “Is it?”

Booth has always had a horror of having to sleep in the same bed as another person, at school, when dormitories were terrible enough, or unexpectedly, on a trip like this, or anywhere really. But he’s already made his decision, he can’t leave Ratcliffe alone here. And he supposes with Ratcliffe, it might not be so bad. Which is certainly not a thought he should be entertaining.

But the gentle, lulling atmosphere downstairs has in no way dissipated upstairs. Perhaps it has him, because as he closes the door behind him, he’s almost glad of the one bed. After all, the two of them will be safer together, and with Ratcliffe next to him he should have no trouble not sleeping through the night. Booth stands there, looks at Ratcliffe and his throat dries up. He should tell him what he suspects, surely Ratcliffe can feel that this atmosphere, as right as it feels, is not. The words stick in his throat like the dry beef and dumplings he left most of on the train. All he can get out is, “Of course.”

Ratcliffe smiles at him, and it’s not his usual self-assured smile. “Well… good. I’m going to look for a bathroom.”

Booth glances at his briefcase, still in his hand. It’s big enough to double as an overnight bag, but it’ll soon become clear he has no change of clothes, no pyjamas. “I’ll unpack. While you go… that is.”

Ratcliffe glances at his own bag, still on the floor with the lamp. “Yes, I see what our landlady meant about that store closet. I might take a look, see if there’s anywhere to hang my clothes.”

Ratcliffe picks up his things, and Booth hurriedly hands him the key.

Alone in the room, Booth looks around, seeking out any uncomfortable feeling, anything that stands out, but there’s nothing. He sits on the bed, and stares at the wall, and wonders what happens next. Strangely, or maybe not so strangely considering this place, it doesn’t seem to matter much. The bed already feels comfortable under him, and he yawns. He considers standing and examining the seamless looking wall as it blurs in front of his eyes, but he doesn’t, he already knows what he’ll find, nothing.

The atmosphere is not broken, or at least pushed aside, until Ratcliffe walks back in. That’s dangerous, Booth thinks, as he blinks. Ratcliffe has changed the slightly ratty robe Booth saw him in at Brockstone last year for a more comfortable navy-blue robe over flannel pyjamas. Seeing him like this feels out of place, and Booth realises it’s less due to the pyjamas than to the lack of any self-assured look on Ratcliffe’s face. Ratcliffe looks nervous, and the sight makes Booth desperately attempt a smile that’s intended to be encouraging, though what it’s intended to encourage Booth doesn’t know.

“I don’t know if you want to have a look at the storeroom,” Ratcliffe says, with a glance at Booth’s unpacked bag, still by the door. He steps forward to hand Booth the key. “It’s a veritable treasure trove of things other people have left here. Definitely worth seeing.” Booth takes the key, it’s long enough for their hands to not even come close to touching, and Ratcliffe sits on the bed next to him, about a foot away. Booth glances his way, but Ratcliffe’s looking around the room, his quick glance mapping it. “Such an odd little room, not even a coat hook. Cosy though.”

Ratcliffe looks his way, and for a moment Booth thinks he’s going to ask why Booth came here. But he doesn’t, just sits and waits for Booth to tell him.

“Where’s the bathroom?” Booth asks, standing.

…

This bathroom, cheerful, light, and clean, is where a man bled out in the bath he sees behind him in the mirror. On the stairs he descends a woman fell, lay dying here. But if either of those ghosts haunt this place, they certainly have an unusually cheerful attitude to their own death. As he walks the dimly lit hallway Booth feels no hunger, no malice, only that same low-level sense of calm and comfort.

There’s no one around as he takes out the key and opens the door to the storeroom. The closet has just enough room to stand inside. The walls, and plenty of the space around them, is overtaken with objects, paintings, and puzzles, and lamps, and plenty of boxes too, stacked away under shelves. Booth, clutching his briefcase to him, is a little overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff, the memories accumulated here over time. He reaches out for one of the books, and for a second a cold chill trickles down his spine, before the cosy feeling returns, wrapping around him like a blanket, tighter than ever.

He hears the steady tap of footsteps on the stairs. Someone, or something, is coming, not making any attempt to muffle their approach, even at this time of night. He turns back to the door and pulls it closed with a barely audible click as the footsteps hit the ground floor. The footsteps don’t falter, striding down the hall.

Booth realises he should be standing, waiting, heart thudding. He’s not. He knows what could be out there, yet he feels utterly calm. But not unafraid.

He crouches as the footsteps approach, and looks through the keyhole. An older man steps briskly into view. He stops at the coat rack and puts on the coat Booth noticed there when he arrived. Taking gloves from the pocket, the man pulls them on, focused. He doesn’t show any signs of being anything besides an ordinary person, but then, it’s not always easy to tell. The man winds his scarf around his neck, picks up his hat, and sneezes. He sniffles, wipes his nose on his sleeve, and leaves. He’s probably just a man, Booth decides.

Booth straightens up. He’s letting himself get unsettled over nothing, except he’s not unsettled, which is unsettling in itself. He thinks of Ratcliffe, if there’s nothing down here, then what about upstairs… and that does set off a pang of fear.

He hurries out, locking the door behind him, and up the stairs with little more caution than the man he just spied on.

But when he reaches the bedroom all is peaceful. Ratcliffe is in bed, head half under the covers, back to him. Booth realises he still has the briefcase in his hands, but Ratcliffe doesn’t turn when he comes in, so he doesn’t have to explain why. Not that it matters, why wouldn’t he just tell Ratcliffe that he wanted to keep it close? Or why not tell him the truth, the whole thing, he thinks as he closes the door, quietly, and opens the case next to the bed, undressing quickly and folding his outer clothes inside.

It should be easier when it’s Ratcliffe, who has believed him in the past, who is aware that things like this exist, who has never been anything but understanding to him, recently at least. But somehow all that only makes things harder. Booth supposes he has more to risk with Ratcliffe. Because Ratcliffe will believe him, trust him. And then, they might wake up tomorrow after an uneventful night in a normal guesthouse. And he’ll have to explain how he leapt on a train for Ratcliffe the moment he sensed a hint of danger, and came all the way here, but turns out there’s nothing wrong, he’s just a foolish, hysterical idiot. Somehow compared to that, explaining this to anyone else and dealing with their doubts seems easy. And still he stands there with this urge to speak.

“Booth? Will you turn out the light?” Ratcliffe moves a little under the covers, as though he might sit up, or turn around any second.

Booth stands there frozen, in only vest and boxers, with a quick glance down even he can see how ungainly he looks. He hasn’t been this undressed in the presence of anyone since childhood, as far as he remembers. He hurriedly closes his case, pushes it under the bed, turns off the lamp and climbs under the covers.

“Goodnight, Booth.”

“Goodnight.” Booth thinks he replies, but it’s hard to be sure, he’s pretty certain he was asleep before his head hit the pillow.

…

He wakes what feels like seconds later, a crash echoing in his ears that might be from a dream, or not, and a strange lurching feeling in his stomach that subsides to nothing in seconds. He lies still for a while, not sure where he is, but not especially worried. Eventually the last day’s events trickle back in, and he looks to his left and dimly sees the shape in bed next to him, where he can just hear soft breathing. He’s vaguely considering sitting up and looking around when he falls back asleep.

The second time he wakes, he blinks his eyes open and is surprised by how dark it is. He feels no sense of time, but feels so unusually comfortable that he is sure he has slept for a long time. Lying there, eyes open, staring up at the blackness where the ceiling should be, all he can hear is Ratcliffe’s steady breathing next to him. He turns slowly onto his side, breaking the night’s spell. He can see Ratcliffe’s outline under the covers, is aware that one of them must have shifted closer as they slept. Is Ratcliffe facing him or away? It’s too dark to tell. If he reached out and touched him, brushed his fingers against him, he would know.

And Ratcliffe would wake and they would get up, and all this would be over. As it should be. He feels no threat from the hotel lying here, just a relaxed urge to lie and sleep longer.

So, he sits up. As dark as the room is, he can make out some shapes, the bedcovers he pushes off of him, Ratcliffe next to him, shifting slightly, but not waking, the edge of the bed as he grips it to climb out onto the hard wooden floor.

He walks forward with short, deliberately muffled steps, expecting to feel glass brush his foot any second. He reaches the wall without finding the lamp, boards firm against his outstretched hands.

He turns back and crouches, feeling across the boards with his hands as he makes his way, like a spider across the floor, towards the bed. He can see the bed, just, even if he can see nothing else in the room. He reaches it without finding the lamp, outstretched hand meeting soft fabric.

Strange, but never mind. He can just open the door a crack and use the light from the hallway.

He moves through the darkness. He reaches the wall and slides his hands along it, until his knee hits the side of the bed. He must have missed the door. He steps back, hands threading over the wall, further than he expected, until with a lurch of his stomach and a tingle in his spine, he hits the corner, the join between walls.

Alright, maybe last night he was confused, maybe he’s misremembering. Quicker now, already knowing what he’ll find, his hands drift over the walls as he makes his way around the room, bed behind him like a planet he is circling, and when his right leg hits the bed he makes a low noise, like a gasp.

He hears Ratcliffe move, looks down and sees him pushing aside the covers, and steps back. “What? Are you awake?” Ratcliffe’s voice is muffled with sleep.

“I can’t find the door.” Booth forces out, his voice so deliberately level it sounds clipped.

He can hear the sleepiness leaving Ratcliffe’s voice. Being replaced by a touch of amusement. “Because you’re on the wrong side of the room.”

“No,” Booth insists. “It’s not that.”

“Come back to bed, Booth.” Ratcliffe says, and lies down again.

That would have woken Booth completely, if he wasn’t already. “Something’s wrong. You try.”

Booth watches Ratcliffe drag himself, slowly at first, to the other side of the bed. “Alright.” He hears the irritation in the other man’s voice, no not irritation, dawning worry. Because Ratcliffe does believe him, does trust him, even if he really shouldn’t. Ratcliffe should have walked out the guesthouse door the moment Booth walked in. But he hadn’t. Wouldn’t. And there’s no point telling him to, because that’s exactly the person Ratcliffe doesn’t want to be. It’s Booth who should have stayed away after the events at Brockstone. Because even if there’s no literal curse anymore, he’s still bad luck.

Ratcliffe walks over to where the door should be. Booth watches through the dark, until he hears Ratcliffe’s exhale as he fails to find the door. Then he starts making his way along the wall towards him, listening all the while as his hands pass lightly over the boards. Partly because maybe Ratcliffe will find what he missed, but more than that because he doesn’t want to lose him here in the dark.

Ratcliffe is moving too, faster than him, and they meet in the middle, where neither of them expect to find a door, but both reach out for one.

Their shoulders brush. Booth can hear Ratcliffe’s breathing, faster than his, can feel him turn to look at him, even here, where it is pitch black, far darker than the bed, he feels Ratcliffe’s eyes on him.

“Is this why you-”Ratcliffe cuts himself off, stepping back from the wall with a muffled noise.

“What is it?”

A moment later Ratcliffe’s hand finds his, and Booth recoils instinctively.

“It’s glass. I stepped on glass.”

Booth corrects himself, and takes the large, curved shard Ratcliffe holds out. The lamp, he realises. “Are you hurt?”

“No, I don’t think it cut me. Just…”

“It’s the lamp.” Booth bends down, and finds the other shattered pieces, and the mechanism. Lucky he hadn’t stepped on this when he came this way before. “I couldn’t find it before. When I woke.” He remembers the crash he woke up to, the lurch in his stomach.

“I’m assuming it’s not much use to us now?”

“No.” The whole mechanism is crushed.

But Ratcliffe is already walking away, back towards the wall where the door should be. “It has to be here…”

Booth wants to tell him not to go, but an idea strikes him. He pushes lamp’s broken pieces into a rough pile. Lucky the glass hadn’t cut Ratcliffe, the edges are razor sharp. Very lucky. Booth moves along the wall, fingers brushing along the crease between wall and floor, and he doesn’t have to go far before he finds his briefcase.

The case is upside down, vertical against the wall, as if it had been thrown there. Someone had been in this room with them, and he had only woken-

Booth hears Ratcliffe’s noise of frustration, and then his breathing growing quicker. That doesn’t sound good. Booth goes to him. “Ratcliffe.” he says, but there’s no answer, though he can sense him only inches away from him, curled even smaller in the dark. He reaches out and touches his shoulder, and Ratcliffe doesn’t flinch away. “Are you alright?”

Ratcliffe takes a deep breath. “No, I’m sorry, I’m not.” He seems to uncurl a little. “It’s the dark, the room. Its…”

“It’s alright.”

Booth reaches down a hand to help him up, and doesn’t let go as he stands, instead leading him towards the bed, hoping that he’s got it right.

The bed hits behind his knees and he sinks onto it. Ratcliffe sits down next to him, grip on his hand still tight. Booth squeezes, trying to echo it. “It’s going to be alright. We’ll find a way out,” he says, with more authority than he feels.

Ratcliffe’s breath is slower, at least. “I know.”

Ratcliffe’s voice sounds surer than Booth feels. He knows he has to believe it too, trust himself, both of them, after all, he has dealt with worst situations. Sitting there, holding Ratcliffe’s hand, there isn’t any other option.

“I’m going to get my bag.” He says, after a moment. It’s an instinctual desire to gather what he has to keep safe in one place, but also, besides the broken lamp the bag is the only thing from the outside they have in this room. Maybe there’s something in there that can help.

He lets go of Ratcliffe’s hand slowly, hoping he’ll have the strength to take it again later.

He walks over to the briefcase and lifts it away from the wall. His hands brush over the sides, hoping, or not hoping, for any sign of what threw it. Its position was strange, flush against the wall, almost as if placed rather than thrown with any force, but why place it like that deliberately? Why even go to the effort of pulling it from under the bed?

He freezes, halfway back to the bed. He places the briefcase down with barely a shudder, kneels down and reaches under the bed, and feels a crease where the wood dips, rises again, and becomes smoother. Ratcliffe must sense the change in him, because he joins him on the floor. “Help me move the bed,” Booth says, almost breathless.

His feet hit the door as the two of them push the bed out the way, and the cosiness of the room drains away. He hadn’t even been sure it was still there, but it had, it’s tendrils only looser. Its absence proves it. What’s left is not threatening, simply nothing. Booth kneels. The bottom of the door is at the head of the bed, the whole room reversed. His fingers curl around the doorknob.

“Go on,” Ratcliffe says next to him, and puts a hand on his shoulder, as if to steady him.

He opens the door. It opens out, and for a second he’s looking down a steep drop into the corridor, the next he’s falling, Ratcliffe grabbing at him from behind, and landing out on the floor of the corridor, dizzyingly flat, Ratcliffe falling with him so they land tangled together.

The door slams shut behind them.

Ratcliffe jumps up, and pulls Booth up too. They both look at each other, then at the door. Ratcliffe steps forward, and puts his hand on the doorknob, and Booth, without considering why he shouldn’t, puts his hand over his.

Ratcliffe looks at him. “We shouldn’t go inside.”

Booth looks back. “Definitely not.”

They pull open the door at the same time, fully, in one go.

To the side there’s the bed, back in its original place. Booth’s briefcase lies next to it, just in front of the door, and further into the room a carpet of glass shards litters the floor.

There’s a tapping behind them. On the stairs, growing louder. No, not a tapping. Booth feels Ratcliffe turn to look at the same time as a chill overtakes him, quick and overwhelming as a blast from a freezer. He remembers that second in the storeroom. But this time the feeling doesn’t disappear under a cosy blanket, instead it grows as those footsteps grow louder.

There’s something in the corridor, a blur of rage and light and dark, running at them. Booth barely has time to stand there, wondering at it, before he’s pulled forward, landing hard against Ratcliffe’s chest. He feels the thing brush his back, a mass of speed and power, carried forward on its own momentum beyond them. Into the room. Booth hears the crunch of glass. He realises several things at once, demons don’t have anything to fear from crushed glass, this is something that is, or was, corporeal, that this thing doesn’t have enough intelligence to create the comfortable feeling that usually fills this place, and as Ratcliffe steps forward, reaching for the door to close it, that his briefcase is still in the room with it.

Booth runs inside and grabs his case, stumbling back as the thing senses him.

“Booth!”

He stumbles back against Ratcliffe, they both stumble back, because it’s coming at them now, wet feet slapping on the floor.

They turn and run down the corridor, thing gaining on them.

But something else is coming towards them, a gust of warmth rushes over them, crashing into what’s behind. Booth is frozen for a moment, between two tidal waves colliding. He’s held tight in a moment of calm terror, certainly an unusual feeling, and then he’s able to move again, slowly like stepping out of mud, until he and Ratcliffe break through, and race for the stairs. Booth glances back once before they turn the corner, and sees bloodied footprints which have come to a stop abruptly. The hallway looks empty, but he knows that’s not true.

Downstairs, outside the storeroom, Booth stops, uncomfortably aware of the case he cradles in his arms. Ratcliffe keeps going a few steps, but stops too once he realises Booth isn’t following.

Ratcliffe looks back, and Booth thinks he’s going to try to hurry him out, but instead he asks, “What do we do?” He knows, just as Booth does, that if they leave now, they won’t be coming back. And that thing upstairs, whatever it is, won’t stop, won’t leave this place.

Booth opens his bag, hurriedly pulling the key out. “The thing upstairs, I don’t think part of the house. I think it’s new. Something must be tethering it here, something that’s been brought or left here recently, some object from its life.”

“So, destroy the object, destroy the ghost?”

“I hope so.” He unlocks the storeroom. “It’s worth a try.”

But when he opens the door the extent of their problem becomes clear. There are a lot of potential items. He and Ratcliffe look at each other.

“It has to be something new,” Booth says, then corrects himself. “No, that’s wrong, it could simply be something new to here.” As Ratcliffe steps forward to pick up items Booth scans over the room, looking for anything that stands out, anything that doesn’t fit.

“What do we know about this spirit?” Ratcliffe asks, hands flying over the books on the back shelf, maybe hoping a title will give him a clue.

“It’s not welcomed by the house.”

“Is that what you think it is? That feeling from yesterday, and last night. The house?”

“Yes, or something close to it.” Booth has experience of how odd things can cluster in hotels, museums, anywhere people come and go. He has less experience of benevolent spirits, but that doesn’t mean they can’t exist. Until an intruder barges in, a traveller who stopped by and found a ready-made trap to exploit.

“What else do we know?”

Those footprints keep bothering him. “It cut itself on our lamp.” He looks at the floor. For shoes. He remembers the man from last night, putting on his coat to go out. His footsteps had rung out on the stairs as he walked down. He never saw him stoop to put on boots.

Booth turns to the coat rack. He sees his and Ratcliffe’s coats, and below them, a pair of thick boots peeking out. He feels a trickle of cold, as if a tap is dripping on him, a dam ready to break just above his head.

“Come on!” He grabs Ratcliffe’s hand, pulling him with him, runs out into the corridor and grabs the boots with the other hand and keeps going. There’s a noise on the stairs, a dull, sloppy, and quickening thud.

The foyer is empty, dark outside, lit only by the hallway lights and the glow of the open fire. Booth throws the boots into the flames. Then falls down by the fire as if watching them closely will help them catch. Maybe it does, he feels the heat on his face as the boots start to blaze, feels the heat of Ratcliffe next to him, hand on his arm, so close he can feel his heartbeat, and listens to those thuds on the stairs hit the hallway and grow closer.

The footsteps don’t stop as the flame licks across the boots with the sickly burnt-hair smell of burning leather. In fact, they speed up, but there’s a different cadence to them now, almost as if they’re being dragged. Ratcliffe pulls him down with him, onto the floor and out of the way, as something flies over them into the fire.

Booth looks up to see the boots burning brightly, dripping melted material and exuding light. And a warmth fills the room, a warmth Booth can’t believe is hiding anything wrong. He looks at Ratcliffe lying next to him, who shows no signs of letting him go. Ratcliffe’s eyes flicker from the fire to his, and stay. Maybe it’s this warm, comfortable feeling, maybe it’s what they’ve just done, but Booth is feeling brave. Ratcliffe’s lips are warm as a fire, soft as a bed, as inviting as this room.


End file.
